Crypto Market Overview (Dec 22–29, 2025) – Year-end holidays kept price action range-bound as the market stayed cautious into 2026.
⏱️ Thin holiday liquidity compressed the range, with $BTC spending most of the week around $87K–$89K and repeatedly stalling near the $90K mark. Total market cap hovered close to ~$3T, signaling more waiting than aggressive risk-taking.
🔎 Sentiment stayed defensive with the Fear & Greed Index sitting in fear territory, so upside attempts lacked follow-through. In this backdrop, flows favored highly liquid assets and quick macro reactions rather than broad altcoin risk.
📌 On the institutional side, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw notable outflows during Christmas week, which reads more like seasonal rebalancing than a clean demand breakdown. With liquidity thin, a few sessions of repositioning can make moves look larger than they really are.
💡 The 2026 narrative increasingly centers on regulation, as key jurisdictions push higher standards for trading and custody while tax reporting frameworks tighten on a set timeline. The upside is clearer rules and stronger operational rails, while the trade-off is higher compliance costs and less room for opaque capital.
✅ In the ecosystem, Uniswap’s fee-related momentum and a major UNI burn kept the “value accrual” theme alive even in a flat week. At the same time, security risk stayed front and center after a browser-extension wallet incident led to multi-million-dollar losses, weighing on short-term confidence.
⚠️ This tape suits patient range tactics more than expecting an immediate breakout, since thin liquidity can produce noisy wicks and false signals. Unless $BTC reclaims and holds above $90K decisively, the base case remains sideways action until post-holiday liquidity returns and a clearer catalyst emerges.
